THE BRUNELLUS PROBLEM Jerry Harkins 

 There is a certain kind of one-upmanship practiced by intellectuals in which the object is to demonstrate a mastery of obscure information. This differs from Trivial Pursuits in several important respects. For one thing, it is a blood sport and for another it never intrudes into anything that might remotely be confused with popular culture. A pundit who compares Pat Buchanan to the Docetist heretics is marking his intellectual turf in much the same way a dog marks a hydrant but without the dog’s sense of play. 

 The master of the form is, of course, Umberto Eco whose 1980 novel, “The Name of the Rose,” is a tour de force of arcana, so much so that three classicists published what became a best selling guide to the book for American readers. Their “Key” is almost as good as the novel. For example, a minor character, the obscure French philosopher John Buridan (c.1290-c.1360), is identified only as, “an important figure in the Nominalist debates.” You are expected to know what nominalism is, how it relates to the realist philosophy of William of Baskerville, the (fictional) hero of the novel, and his friend, the (historical) moderate nominalist William of Occam, and how it resonates in Twentieth Century logical positivism and contemporary deconstructionism. It is further understood that your interest is purely scholarly. The authors will not waste your time with gossip about one of the most interesting figures of the dark ages. Of course you are not even aware such assumptions are being made about you unless you exhausted the mystery genre at an early age, so score two points for the authors of the “Key.” 

Still, “Key” does not approach the subtlety of “The Name.” You can read the entire novel several times and never realize that the author supposes you are as familiar with the works of Jorge Luis Borges as he is. In this instance, you have lost several points without even knowing the ball was in play even if you cover Borges in the graduate seminar you teach every two or three years. 

The most irritating thing about Eco, however, is not that he knows more than you do or that he is always right but that he has a bad habit of hinting at knowledge so outré that you, dear reader, have no hope of looking it up. Such is the case with Brunellus. Early in the novel, William and his apprentice, Adso, arrive at a Benedictine monastery and are greeted by a group of monks outside its walls. Adso reports this conversation: 

“I thank you, Brother Cellarer,” my master replied politely, “and I appreciate your courtesy all the more since, in order to greet me, you have interrupted your search. But don’t worry. The horse came this way and took the path to the right. He will not get far because he will have to stop when he reaches the dungheap. He is too intelligent to plunge down that precipitous slope…” 

“When did you see him?” the Cellarer asked. 

“We haven’t seen him at all, have we Adso?... But if you are hunting for Brunellus, the horse can be only where I have said.” 

Subsequently we learn how William has deduced the nature of the Cellarer’s mission and the location of the horse. But how has he learned the animal’s name. When Adso asks, William says only, “May the Holy Ghost sharpen your mind, son! What other name could he possibly have? Why even the great Buridan, who is about to become Rector in Paris, when he wants to use a horse in one of his logical examples, always calls it Brunellus.” 

And may the Holy Ghost sharpen your mind also, reader! Everybody except you knows why a monk’s horse must be named Brunellus. It is so obvious Eco will not insult you by explaining it. 

As it turns out, the present writer is not exactly chopped liver when it comes to horse arcana. For one thing, he knows the “Key” is wrong to translate Brunellus as Brownie. Naturally, he knows about Buridan’s ass Brunellus, the metaphorical intellectual who starves to death between two equidistant bales of hay. (Buridan may be obscure but his ass is famous.) And like anyone else familiar with Chaucer’s “Nun’s Priest’s Tale, he is aware of Nigel Wireker’s “Speculum Stultorum.” This is a fable of another Brunellus, also an ass, who desperately wants a longer tail and, not finding it through drugs or graduate study at the University of Paris, returns to England to found a new monastic order. 

So has Eco erred? Might it be that a monk would consider Brunellus a perfect name for an ass but not necessarily for a horse? To assume an error on Eco’s part would be a fool’s bet. He’s good at this. Better than you and even better than I. Maybe as good as my friend Gerry Sircus. 

I can live, I suppose, with my own ignorance. I can even live without knowing how to Google my way out of it. But it’s hard to accept that someone else besides Eco knows the answer and it is not I. 

Somewhere there is the entomologist who named a rare Hawaiian butterfly Rhyncopalpus brunellus (Little Bruno the brown nose). What other name could it possibly have? Worst of all is my certain knowledge that Eco knows about that damn butterfly and is just waiting for me to mention it casually. Einstein said that God is subtle but not malicious. Would we could say the same of Umberto Eco.

Subsequently

Fifteen years after publishing this essay, I read the brilliant book Life Is Simple:  How Occam's Razor Set Science Free and Shapes the Universe by Johnjoe McFadden, (Basic Books, 2021).  As it turns out, I need to recant my description of John Buridan as "...a minor character, [and an] obscure French philosopher."  I must have slept through Dr. Javier's class on nominalism (as I slept through most of his classes).  At least the Holy Ghost sharpened my mind enough so that I figured out that William of Baskerville is Eco's surrogate for William of Occam.

BILLY BASHING
Jerry Harkins


The Times must have run front page book reviews before June 20, 2004 but I can’t, for the life of me, recall one. [1] The publication of Bill Clinton’s memoirs, however, was too much of a temptation. The Times’ relationship with Mr. Clinton is not a simple one. It endorsed him twice but that didn’t stop it from despising him or from siding with his most rabid, red meat critics. It never said anything good about him that wasn’t damning with faint praise. It has praised George Bush unreservedly on several issues, but never Bill Clinton. Toni Morrison famously explained it as a concomitant of its perception that he had been our first black President and she was right. He fed The Times’ nightmarish vision of a southern black hoodlum: big, loud, trashy and sexually voracious. They miss the catharsis of their daily Billy bashing so they decided to enjoy the opportunity to renew old grudges. They brought out their biggest literary gun, one Michiko Kakutani, and issued her a new well of bile. Ms. Kakutani was not amused: “…numbing, self conscious garrulity,” she wrote. Long-winded and tedious. Self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull. A messy pastiche. Self-serving, often turgid. Wow! That is literary criticism. Self-conscious, self-indulgent and self-serving—all in one 1,600 word barrage. There should be a 5-day waiting period before critics are allowed to buy a thesaurus.

Now this may lead you to ask, who in hell is Michiko Kakutani? Well, according to the GoldSea Asian American web site, she is Number 10 on their list of the 60 most inspiring Asian Americans. Here’s what they have to say about her:

"Her surgical vivisections of bloated authors have made the New York Times lead literary critic the bitch-goddess of American letters and won her a Pulitzer in 1998 to boot. Browbeating America's cultured class with its own code is Kakutani's contribution to the spider-webbing crack in the stereotype of English-fracturing Asians. She did it all while keeping her inner -- or outer -- life from being limned by either the fawning or the fuming."

I have a little trouble with “surgical.” The vivisection image is not a pretty one but the writers wanted to imply the precision and finesse with which they think the critic goes about her dirty but necessary business. I associate her more with axes and sledge hammers, but that is only my opinion. And, “bitch-goddess” may be a bit harsh, but they know her better than I do. As to “browbeating America’s cultured class,” well, she is a product of Yale University whose graduates, by their own admission, tend to know everything worth knowing (William F. Buckley, Jr.), nothing much about anything (George W. Bush), or everything everyone else should and should not know (Pat Robertson). And while I’m at it, I may as well admit that Ms. Kakutani is pretty much an equal opportunity critic: she doesn’t like most of the books she reads which must make for a fairly pinched life. But she really despises the Clintons. She found Hillary’s book, Living History, “…a mishmash of pious platitudes” and “robotic asides.” And, of course, it was “self-conscious.” Self-conscious may be the whole idea of autobiography but Ms. Kakutani knows what she doesn’t like. [2] I wonder if she’s ever tried cozy mysteries or Harlequin romances. Probably not.

Given all the ignorant malcontents among its readers, The Times got a lot of nasty letters about its ongoing obsession with the Clintons. Its Public Editor Daniel Okrent [3], however, reviewed the brouhaha and found nothing objectionable about the review or the obsession. Which came as a relief to me because in football it would be called “piling on” and carry a fifteen yard penalty. In journalism, it is called indulging the editors’ neuroses and gets nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Notes

1. I am told it did run a front page review of one of the Harry Potter masterpieces. I must have been out to lunch that morning.

2. Nine days after the Kakutani review, The Times published another one in the Sunday “Book Review” (6/29/04). This was marginally more sympathetic which is surprising as its author was Maureen Dowd, the paper’s most acerbic columnist. Ms. Dowd, you may remember, was the writer who castigated Judy Dean for not standing by her man on the campaign trail. A positive review by Larry McMurty was published on July 4 and a sophomoric satire by Christopher Buckley ran in the Book Review on July 11. Fortunately Mr. Clinton is writing another book so we can look forward to another cycle of what Alexander Pope referred to as, “Ten Censure wrong for one who Writes amiss”

3. Mr. Okrent is neither a member of the public nor an editor of the paper. He is the Complaint Department going by a puffed up name, a little like calling the garbage man a sanitation engineer which in fact is not a bad job description for Mr. O.

YANKEE GO HOME
Jerry Harkins

Life is full of mysteries and I guess I should get used to it. At the moment, I’m wondering why the United States pursues a foreign policy that may or may not be consistent with its values but sure as hell is not at all consistent with its interests. This is going to turn into a piece about Iraq but maybe we should begin with something easier. Such as Korea. A half century ago, we sent 1,789,000 soldiers to save South Korea from being swallowed up by North Korea. Of these, 33,742 were killed and 92,134 were wounded. I know it’s not polite to mention it, but that’s a big investment. Since then, we have maintained enough soldiers there—currently around 37,000—to serve as an earnest of our commitment. They couldn’t possibly stop a new invasion. They would be overrun in a matter of hours. But their mere presence is supposed to remind the North Koreans that we are willing to double down on our blood investment. To me this has always seemed a questionable strategy, even while it kept on working for fifty years. North Korea is an insane Stalinist state unlikely to conform its actions to any standard known to the civilized world, including its own survival.

Anyway, the South Koreans no longer want our protection. They have adopted what they call a “sunshine policy” the gist of which is that the North is no longer a “main enemy” but is now a “friendly neighbor.” The dear leader does his best to render Seoul more realistic and cannot be faulted if they choose to ignore him. What the South seems to want is reunification with the North, and the North says it’s willing to talk about it on the condition they throw us out first. While we’re leaving, they also want us to participate in an aid package to bail them out of the chronic economic disaster they have created by choosing guns over butter.

The Southerners are rioting in the streets and their politicians are outdoing each other screaming to anyone who will listen, “Yankee go home.” Sub rosa, some of them want us to stay because, if we go, it will make international investors nervous and that would be bad for the likes of Samsung, Hyundai and Kia. Hyundai especially is playing both sides of the street. It is making a huge investment in the North. For one thing, it paid $500 million for the right to build all the civil engineering projects the North undertakes after it gets the necessary foreign aid—which is to say after hell freezes over. It is also building a huge multi-billion dollar manufacturing facility in the North. But it’s business plan is predicated on selling a good share of the projected output in the U.S. market which, given the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, is somewhat speculative. So there is no appetite in the executive suite for making investors any more antsy than they are given that the company is pouring trillions of Won into a black hole. They prefer that we stay, hoping that investors are stupid enough to think our presence will act as a deterrent to Mr. Kim. It’s the Korean stock exchange that drives what passes for policy among the tonier classes. Most folks though just want us gone. And if you ask me, that sounds like a plan.

The South Koreans aren’t the only ones who think our North Korean policy is inconvenient or ill conceived. After considerable saber rattling, the Northerners and the Southerners forced the U.S. to sit down with them in April, 2003. The meeting ended badly so the Chinese decided to get involved in a particularly inscrutable fashion. After intense diplomacy, they convened a six-way conference in August after which they announced a vague agreement to meet again. The dancing in the streets that might ordinarily greet such momentous happenings was subdued, however, when the North Koreans announced that they had already built six nuclear weapons and were reprocessing enough plutonium to make forty more. Still, the Chinese, preferring not to contemplate whom Honorable Kim planned to bomb, said the meeting had been a great success. The North Koreans, thinking perhaps China had not gotten the memo, said they saw no reason for further meetings until the U.S. meets all its demands—which is to say caves into extortion. One of the Japanese representatives chimed in with the view that the main stumbling block was the U.S. refusal to make the necessary concessions to said extortion. He didn’t say what the concessions were because, like everybody else, he has no idea what Kim Jong Il wants besides a library of porno flicks. All this is bonkers of course but it leads to the conclusion that the countries of the region are united in believing we are the bad guys. It’s the only thing that unites them and I have no stomach for bursting their bubble. I mean if it weren’t for the common enemy in Washington, the Koreans and the Chinese might come to blows over the volatile issue of the downfall of the Kingdom of Koguryo in 668 C.E. The Japanese and the Chinese might be at each other’s throats about whether the rape of Nanking was genocide or merely an excessively enthusiastic expression of Japanese eroticism. Barbarians like us, brought up in the straightjacket of Aristotelian logic, can never hope to understand the nuances of East Asian diplomacy. So here’s the policy: we declare the Korean War over, pack up and go home.

You say we can’t trust the North Koreans. Ten minutes after we leave, they’ll issue an ultimatum and maybe drop a bomb or two on Seoul for good measure. Maybe. Probably not, but maybe. The Great Beloved Leader is hard to predict. I mean in your heart you know he’s a fruitcake. But it’s none of our business. The South Koreans are all grown up. A free, self-determining, highly successful nation. Maybe they got that way on our dime, but now they get to make these decisions all by themselves. It may be hard to see the kids fledge but there you have it. And if they fall out of the nest and die, well we tried. It’s a cruel world. Pack up, Yankee, and mustering as much dignity as possible, go home.

It seems so obvious you have to wonder what you’re missing. What are we worried about? Not Japan. What we do in Korea has absolutely no effect on Japan where we have another tripwire in place. A lot of Japanese don’t want us either so maybe they should hold a plebiscite and we agree to abide by the results. Like the Koreans, it’s sometimes hard to know just what the Japanese want us to do. At the moment, they’re working with us in an effort to develop an antimissile system that could intercept rockets fired from North Korea (or, for that matter, China). The Northerners do not approve of this and have announced that Japan’s cooperation with the United States, “would serve as a detonating fuse to turn Japan into a nuclear sea of fire.” Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi says there’s nothing to worry about. “The reports I’ve had say it is nothing to make a fuss about,” he opined. The South Korean deputy reunification minister, Lee Bong Jo, agrees. If a nuclear sea of fire doesn’t faze these guys, you have to wonder what would.

Surely we don’t have to worry about Hawaii, at least not for the present. The day North Korea poses a threat to Hawaii, we simply bomb it back into the Stone Age. Al Qaeda? I don’t know but, to the extent North Korea may be a player on the terrorism stage, or on the nuclear proliferation stage, our response has got to be serious which is to say independent of South Korea. Anyway, the 37,000 troops we have in South Korea are not in a position to contribute to the war on terrorism. If anything, they are hostages limiting our flexibility.

I can get pretty worked up about this. I’m thinking I may be wrong and the South Koreans really want us to stay. I mean, I don’t speak the language and I am fully aware of my limitations when it comes to diplomatic subtleties. Moreover, I am biased. I actually agree with a lot of what I see on the placards. George Bush as a demented vampire isn’t so far from the truth. George is, at minimum, a muscular Christian who scares the hell out of me. As far as he’s concerned this is not about North Korea or South Korea. It’s about domestic politics right here in the good old US of A. The Administration does not want to get involved in Korea, at least not yet. At the same time, it does not want to be seen as turning tail. So it has adopted an amazingly cynical program of its own: we won’t even talk to the bad guys until they agree to improve their human rights record. Our President would like people to believe he gives a damn about human rights which is hard to do in the face of considerable evidence to the contrary. South Korea’s response to this bit of diplomatic theater is classic. The former Foreign Minister, a Mr. Ban, says that of course human rights should be honored everywhere but the “particular situation” in North Korea must be taken into account and the issue should not “have a negative effect” on negotiations. The “particular situation” seems to be the fact that Mr. Ban knows Mr. Kim is a sadistic bloodsucker who is not overly stable and there’s not a hell of a lot he can do about it. For pure cynicism, then, Seoul and Washington seem to be in a dead heat.

The evident flaw in all this policy posturing is that North Korea is much more of a problem than Iraq ever was, even if the problems it poses are or should be more salient to their neighbors than to us. But Mr. Bush is not ready to deal with North Korea, thank God because I’d hate to see a renewal of hostilities. What’s stopping him is Iraq where the war he did want is not going so well. The American priorities are informed not by a strategic vision, not by a noble goal, not even by our self interest. They are driven by a sort of malignant neglect. The key strategic value is winning elections and that will be determined, Karl Rove thinks, by how Iraq plays on the six o’clock news. We can’t fight two wars at the same time, a fact that seems to have come as a surprise to the geniuses running the Pentagon. We’d lose them both which is worse than losing only one. So Korea takes a back seat.

Given all these uncertainties, I want to be very careful. Maybe we should stay in Korea after all. Why? How does it advance the interests of the United States to station 37,000 warriors in Korea? I have no idea but that may simply be a failure of imagination. Korea is not like the Middle East where, at least, we do have a strategic interest in the oil. Which brings us, at last, to the point of this essay.

We do need Middle Eastern oil but to think our entire misbegotten policy in the region is about oil is myopic. If it were, we would have kissed off Israel decades ago. One of the great myths is that our policy toward that woebegone country is based on some sort of high moral commitment. Sadly it is not, even though it may once have been. It would be more accurate to say that it is based on the high moral commitment of American Jews who, not incidentally, tend to vote their convictions. A lot of King George’s fundamentalist friends agree with them because they think that Armageddon cannot start until the Jews are secure in Israel. The Jews, of course, are not about to dissuade them even though they know the fundamentalists don’t have both oars in the water. I hope this isn’t news to you. A very similar calculus informs our Cuba policy which is driven by a bunch of aging refugees with grandiose ideas. But unlike Israel and Cuba, neither Iraq nor the Arabs have much of a constituency in the U.S. outside the oil companies. So our leaders were free to orchestrate the Iraqi war anyway they pleased. It was, however, a bargain with the devil. Once we invaded, there was never going to be a realistic exit strategy that would not be seen as turning tail. The worst part of that is it gives Jacques Chirac gloating rights and sets the United Nations down on the moral high ground. Damn!

Whenever the subject turns to Iraq (as you see it has), you get a lot of heated arguments. There is however one thing everybody except the Iraqis and I agree on: whatever else we do, we have to be sure to preserve the “territorial integrity” of Iraq. The thinking class believes it would be a disaster should the country descend into ethnic or regional chaos because it could spill over and destabilize or otherwise discommode the neighbors. The only problem, as it so often is, is reality: we are living in an era of religious and ethnic fragmentation. The Basques want to separate from Spain and France, the Kashmiris want to get out from under the heel of Hindu India, the Kurds want their own state carved out of Iraq, Iran and Turkey, Nigeria is coming apart at the seams, the Sudanese Muslims are slaughtering the Sudanese Christians, Bangladesh split off from Pakistan not too long ago and the Sikhs of India would like to follow suit, the Muslims of southern Thailand are fighting a nasty little rebellion against the Buddhists, there is no more Czechoslovakia, Quebec is sporadically unhappy being part of Canada, the only thing holding Syria together is a brutal dictatorship, and Central Asia is a witch’s brew of nationalities seeking nationhood. Think Chechnya. There is a word for this process. It is called Balkanization in honor of a thousand years of religious and ethnic hatreds among the brotherhood of Southern Slavs. You could just as easily call it Caucasianization in honor of the ethnic and religious fissions going on in Georgia and elsewhere. Georgia is a nation with just a hair more than five million souls—a tad smaller than Rio de Janeiro—who are waging four revolutions simultaneously (Abkhazia, Ajaria, South Ossetia and Mengrelia) requiring the attention of peacekeepers from Russia and the UN. In Africa, tribal war affects practically every country south of the Sahara and religious war is being waged in every other country. The fact that a lot of these people are starving does nothing to lessen their enthusiasm for slaughter. It must be admitted that many of the problems are the result of former colonial powers trying to impose European or, in the case of Georgia, Stalinist geopolitical logic on vast swaths of the globe that were perfectly happy with their own cultural logic which, often enough, involved mutual slaughter.

Can this teach us something about Iraq? Probably not, but the word Iraq derives from the medieval Arabic name for the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers south of Baghdad that was later called Al-Jazirah meaning The Island. From 1534 to 1918 this piece of modern Iraq was known variously as Baghdad or Mesopotamia (meaning between the rivers) and was a province (vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire. It was home to numerous Arabic-speaking tribes belonging mostly to the Suni branch of Islam. In 1922, the British cobbled it together with Al Basrah, the province in the south inhabited primarily by Shiite Muslims and Ma’dan or Marsh Arabs. Mosul, the adjacent province in the north populated largely by Kurds and other non-Arabs, was added by treaty with Turkey in 1926. This was a big mistake given all the oil but (a) Turkey had been on the losing side in World War I, and (b) Turkey already had enough trouble with its own Kurds. But the important thing to take from history is that the so-called Iraqis have been engaged in tribal warfare with each other and their neighbors since the beginning of recorded history. They invented war more than five thousand years ago along with cuneiform writing, banking, despotism, imperialism and many of the other accouterments of what we like to think of as civilization. During the Ottoman era, this area was the eastern frontier and there was rarely a day of peace between the Suni Arabs and the Shiite Persians.

Thus, what is shown on today’s maps as Iraq is not a nation or a state but a federation yoked together recently by outside colonialists against the will of all the native parties and their neighbors. There is not now nor has there ever been equilibrium of any sort and any notion that order can be imposed is nothing but wishful thinking. “A democratic Iraq” is a contradiction in terms; “at peace with its neighbors” is delusional. In the absence of a brutal dictatorship, the only force that could possibly hold the parties together is oil to which all three have some reasonable claim. But these are not reasonable people given to cooperation and compromise. To Iraqis, freedom means the freedom to riot, pillage and kill each other and everyone else. The vision of the United States Marine Corps—which has known and successfully dealt with fanaticism before—negotiating with what appears to be a ragtag militia that has fought it to a standstill is revealing. As a nation, the United States is simply not willing to use the overwhelming force that would be needed to subdue its tormentors. If it wouldn’t do it in Vietnam after wasting 50,000 lives, it will not do it in the deserts of Mesopotamia. Even the Soviets were not willing to do it in Afghanistan. Their half-hearted attempt to do so contributed mightily to their downfall when the comrade citizens got sick of the bloodshed. (Note to Karl Rove: you might want to fact check this.)

So where are we? Well, in a few short years, America has alienated pretty much the whole world. It wasn’t easy. The war was just the last straw and it is making everything worse every hour we spend there. Why don’t we leave? It seems to me that our mission in Iraq has, as our own beloved leader has said, been accomplished. The Great Evildoer is in our custody. Neither he nor his successors will threaten anyone with weapons of mass destruction for the foreseeable future for reasons too embarrassing to mention. The only thing left is nation building which Dear Leader denounced in his 2000 campaign.

Anyway, there is no nation. Get used to it. The good folk who live there don’t want us to build one for them. In this non-desire, they are joined by like-minded colleagues imported from Al Qaeda and Hamas. They do not want democracy. They want a dictatorship, some preferring one or another Islamic model, others a Baathist one. Anyway, it seems to me, the idea of imposing democracy is another sort of contradiction in terms. So why are we working so hard to convince ourselves that we are, in Mr. Bush’s words, “doing God’s work?” What are they saying? Is God pissed off at Iraq the way he once was at Sodom? Are smart bombs his modern version of fire and brimstone? If that’s what they think…well, that’s blasphemy. That describes a God who is either stupid or sociopathic or both.

It is basically impossible to extricate yourself from a quagmire while retaining even a shred of dignity. But if you’ve ever been trapped in one, you know that your only other option is to drown. You are already wet, filthy and invested with bugs you don’t want to know about. It is just not worth trying to preserve what little dignity you have left. Every fiber of your being is shouting, “Get the hell out of here!” But, you say, abandoning Iraq now will have dire consequences. Yes, it will. The Arabs will be very mad at us and oil futures will go through the roof in anticipation of another embargo. The right wing will be in full voice demanding to know “Who lost Iraq?” The question, of course, will be moot because Iraq will no longer exist. They wouldn’t like the answer anyway because it would mean Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush would have to fall on their swords.

Withdrawing from Iraq will be calamitous in ways we can’t begin to imagine but, even so, staying there is a fool’s game. The President is forever giving speeches in front of what Madison Avenue calls scrims that bear the motto of the day. For the forthcoming concession speech, the scrim should say, “About face.” But, given the administration’s penchant for the big lie, it will probably say, “Advancing to the rear.”

AGINCOURT, TRAFALGAR, WATERLOO AND NOW SINGAPORE
Jerry Harkins

Jacques “Iraq” Chirac has not been having an easy time this year what with the ignominious demise of the EU constitution, high unemployment, a bitter struggle with Tony Blair over France’s addiction to high agricultural supports and another with his young constituents who took to the barricades over their god-given right to employment security and six week vacations. The International Olympic Committee not only didn’t give the 2012 games to Paris, they added insult to injury by giving them to London. Think of it as the Battle of Singapore. Jock didn’t help his own cause by mouthing off about British cuisine and claiming that the only contribution the Brits have made to agriculture is mad cow disease. His own contribution, of course, is terminal foot in the mouth syndrome. I mean the man said that English food is the worst in the world except for Finland. The Finns had two votes on the IOC committee. I was not surprised by the Olympic Committee’s decision. The French play a little soccer and have produced a handful of good tennis players but generally they don’t win very much. The video of the good citizens of Paris expressing their disagreement may have been misleading. Their anger was directed less at the IOC and more at England and Tony Blair who, they announced, had cheated. Well, they said the same thing about Hank the Cinq, Wellington and Lord Nelson. The French have a lot of experience with the English, most of it embarrassing.

France, you see, is a state of mind making a sincere effort to be a nation. Since 1792, it has tried thirteen different forms of government: five republics, two empires, a Reign of Terror, a Directorate, a Consulate, a restored Monarchy, and, during World War II, two Nazi collaborationist regimes, that of Pierre Laval in Paris and Philippe Petain in Vichy. While all have been ineffective, they have produced a colorful cast of leaders beginning with Robespierre who ruled by the dictum, “Terror without virtue is powerless.” Virtuous terror is one of those uniquely French constructions that is logical only in a language with a very nuanced grammar. It is the same kind of logic that turns Napoleon into a “military genius” which, in any other language, would be an oxymoron.

In the real world, Napoleon was a military idiot. He did manage to defeat Austria, Italy and Egypt before running into major league pitching in such places as Haiti. And Russia. In less than six months in 1812, through sheer stupidity fortified by invincible arrogance, he managed to reduce an army—his own—of more than 400,000 soldiers to a mob of fewer than 10,000. In fact, military history provides the perfect capsule description of French history. Over the centuries, French soldiers have displayed courage, resolve and patriotism. French generals on the other hand have been mostly inept. The Arc de Triomphe is a monument to that ineptitude. On it are engraved the names of 801 French generals, 799 of whom you have never heard. On its sides are the names of 268 battles, 30 of which are regarded as definitive victories. The rest are ties. There was not enough space for definitive defeats.

Vive la France! When Marianne looks in her mirror, she sees a beacon to mankind, the fragile guardian of culture, art, ethics and cuisine in an undeserving world. She knows people think of her as something of a scold. The Americans especially accuse her of being haughty, arrogant and often frivolous. Well, what can one say about the Americans? Twice in the last century, the French had to rescue them from the jaws of defeat. Victory and defeat do not mean the same things in French as they do in other languages. For example, the terror alert system in Paris has five levels: take a vacation, run, hide, surrender and collaborate. Calvin and Hobbes capture this philosophy precisely. Calvin is stationed behind the wall of his snow fort proclaiming, “I’m ready for anything!” He is immediately bombarded by several dozen snowballs. Hobbes asks him, “Are you ready for unconditional surrender?” Buried in the remains of the fort, Calvin replies, “That above all else.”

The most important French hero of recent times was Charles de Gaulle who, as a young man, did everything he could to teach the British and Americans how to save his country’s butt. When this proved impossible, he single handedly invaded Normandy, liberated Paris, fought off the German counterattack in the Battle of the Bulge and reduced Berlin to ashes. He accomplished all this armed only with a butter knife while riding a white horse and wearing a bulletproof cape. Later, as President of the Republic, he put down the Algerian revolt and developed the force de frappe which is essentially an ice cream confection. He then withdrew France from military participation in NATO, confident that it could defend itself. Against the United States and Great Britain. Napoleon had already scared the hell out of the Russians so they wouldn’t dare attack France. Unfortunately, his nuclear adventure went awry when it came up against Greenpeace. He was undaunted. He once said, “When I want to know what France thinks, I ask myself.” He often said, “I am France.” Does that sound familiar? Charles XI’s answer to Louis XIV. L’etat c’est moi.

His distaste for the United States was total. Looking down that marvelous Gallic nose of his, he declaimed, “You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.” The biggest damn fool thing the Americans did, however, was to try to bail France out of the mess it had created in its colonial satrapy, Viet Nam. Ike, who was President of the U.S. at the time, still had a soft spot for the French (remember, de Gaulle had saved Ike from ignominious defeat in Europe). He also had a weakness for the domino theory so he took over the fight against the Viet Cong thereby beginning America’s 20-year nightmare.

Chirac is a tinker’s version of de Gaulle, a tacky, plaster souvenir statue of the anointed one. How he rose to be the leader of a great nation is something of a mystery, one I don’t want to probe too deeply. I can hear my French friends asking me about how a great nation like America could elect an ignorant Yahoo like George W. Bush as its own supreme leader. Of course, the answer is we did it to restore French smugness in the wake of their defeat by Greenpeace. As it turned out we needn’t have bothered. The French merely declared the Battle of Greenpeace a great victory and engraved it on the Arc de Triomphe. Their smugness was never discommoded.

The fox knows many things. The hedgehog knows one big thing. The French know everything. For example, they know how to make the most disgusting things palatable. Do you want to eat snails? Go to Paris. Truffles anyone? Ditto. Horses? Well, you get the idea. They used to make the best wine in the world but now they’re second or third. That’s what happens when you spread culture to the heathens. That great civilizing mission often comes a-cropper which gives them a chance to bemoan the invincible barbarity of the non-French. Americans, for example, have never learned the proper use of a bidet because they have never let us observe one being used. There are instruction manuals but some things are hard to put into even French words.

Unlike any other nation in the world, France is necessary. If it didn’t exist we would have to invent it. We could call it Disneyland.

DE LAY OF DE LAND
Jerry Harkins

Ladies and gentlemen, Christianity offers the only viable, reasonable, definitive answer to the questions of 'Where did I come from?' 'Why am I here?' 'Where am I going?' 'Does life have any meaningful purpose?' Only Christianity offers a way to understand that physical and moral border. Only Christianity offers a comprehensive worldview that covers all areas of life and thought, every aspect of creation. Only Christianity offers a way to live in response to the realities that we find in this world -- only Christianity.
—Tom DeLay
April 12, 2002



Regular readers know my mantra: what would Jesus do? Go on first class golfing junkets paid for by lobbyists? Gerrymander Texas congressional districts in the mad pursuit of power? Sell access and influence to political contributors? Put his wife and daughter on the payroll? Sell to the highest bidder the popcorn concession at the crucifixion? Sure he would.

Tom DeLay is toast and I, for one, will be happy to pass the jam. Much to his surprise, he has been indicted on charges of criminal conspiracy and money laundering in connection with the above-referenced Gerrymander. His defense is twofold. First, “I didn’t do it.” Well, that’s a relief! Second, the prosecutor is a partisan fanatic. So that’s the story! The fanatic in question replied, “Being called vindictive and partisan by Tom DeLay is like being call ugly by a frog.” Tom also allowed as to how this was political retribution for his successful role in the Gerrymander. “This is,” he said, “one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in American history.” I immediately thought of Nathan Hale, Sacco and Vanzetti, and the Haymarket martyrs. I had the unworthy wish that Tom might share the fate of these victims of prosecutorial misconduct. This is, after all, Texas. He probably won’t though. His lawyers immediately went into court and asked a judge to throw out the charges on the ground that this was the weakest indictment in history (except for that of Jesus). It would take a judge with an iron stomach to do so but, hey, this is Texas and Mr. DeLay is a very big shot in the Lone Star State. Judges are not terribly expensive.

Leader DeLay poses as a former bum who was born again by the grace of Jesus. This is primo politico claptrap down in Texas. Being or at least having been a bum is taken as proof of one’s manhood and being born again is conclusive evidence that God is on our side. He got thrown out of Baylor for drinking but that is not so bad because Baylor is a heretical Baptist school which is not sufficiently fundamentalist. Contrary to the Chicago Declaration, Baylor says it, “…is founded on the belief that God's nature is made known through both revealed and discovered truth.” “Discovered truth” includes science which is blasphemous.

Tom was an exterminator before being elected to Congress representing Sugar Land, Texas. I’ve always thought he spent too much time with cockroaches. He married his high school sweetheart and they’ve been practicing family values ever since. Christine is on the payroll as is daughter, Danielle, whom he retains as a consultant. She is also a lobbyist, but with born again Christians you have to look beyond mere appearances. She avoids lobbying in Washington, working only in Texas where her father has no influence except for little courtesies like the Great Gerrymander.

Texas is a land of contradictions—big open spaces and small closed minds. Much of the state (no one really knows how much) is still dry but you can usually get a drink by becoming a “member” of the local restaurant of your choice. Admission costs a quarter and there is no IQ test. Texas has no income tax, personal or corporate. It prides itself on being the low tax state and it is always grateful to Mississippi without which it would invariably rank fiftieth in everything else too. Go to a business lunch in Dallas or Houston and look around you. Seventy-five percent of the men are carrying handguns. If it’s a club that lets women in, 50% of the girls will be packing too. We’re not talking about .22 caliber Saturday Night Specials either. In keeping with their status as citizens of the nation’s second largest state, Texans prefer the .357 Magnum and Elephant Load ammunition for their everyday shooting. It is rumored that Colt is working on just such a gun equipped with a grenade launcher and stiletto. The light weight model for ladies will omit the stiletto. In any event, since these eating clubs are the last redoubts of the three martini lunch, you are well advised to keep a low profile. When a junior executive sashays up to the salad bar, be alert. Study President Bush's body language and speech patterns and wonder if he too is armed. “Dangerous” goes without saying.

Texans all think they are cowboys. They love to dress up in ten gallon hats and high heeled boots made with the leather of exotic, preferably endangered species. These costumes are invariably accessorized with four-pound rodeo championship belt buckles measuring at least six by nine inches. In Houston eating clubs, some of these buckles will be made of solid gold and marked with what looks like a cattle brand but is really a registered logo of Neiman Marcus. It takes a tough man to break a mean bronco, brand a longhorn cow or do either to a real Texas lady.

As you might expect, Texas comes complete with its own mythology. It used to be that Texas politicians really were giants—colorful characters who were as corrupt as the devil but slick as a slaughterhouse floor and charming as a fakir working a cobra. Think of Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson. Every story you ever heard about either one of them is true. It all began at the Alamo where a posse of American icons—Jim Bowie (Richard Widmark) and Davy Crockett (The Duke himself) among them—discovered the ultimate weapon, PR. The art of making a silk purse out of a pig’s ear. Pretty much everything you’ve ever heard about the Battle of the Alamo is bullshit except that Santa Ana won. That means Texas lost but you won’t find it mentioned much. Any five year old will tell you that our 187 heroes won a moral victory in spite of a Mexican army numbering in the millions. It’s the same sort of moral victory old Tom DeLay is about to enjoy in Huntsville.

Texans have always lied a lot but today’s batch are degenerates compared to their ancestors. DeLay is a perfect example. When things go wrong he whines his lies. Can you imagine LBJ whining? When a problem arose, Landslide Lyndon would round up the malefactor, put his massive arm around the man’s shoulders and say, “Let us reason together.” It was very effective. And perfectly legal.

Subsequently

In November 2010, The Hammer was convicted and a few weeks later was given three years in jail. He blamed his problems on the liberals and told the Today Show that Travis County, Texas was the most liberal jurisdiction in America. He is out on bail pending appeal and is likely to remain so for some time. He could get off on the "merits" (remember this is Texas) but if it gets to the federal courts it would get interesting. Under the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, corporations cannot be prohibited from making political contributions. Texas law seems to do just that so Tom's best hope is to argue that he was convicted under an unconstitutional law. Makes one yearn for the good old days when we just strung up malefactors from the nearest cottonwood tree.

A MERRY WIFE FOR WINDSOR
Jerry Harkins

At long last it has been announced that Charley will make Camilla an honest woman. The happy couple will be married in a civil ceremony in April and she will henceforth and at long last be a Lady—actually Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Cornwall. She may never be Queen but, when (and, of course, if) HRH Charley becomes King, she will be styled Prince’s Consort (or some such).[1] The Queen is said to be delighted (don’t ask me how you can tell) and the Archbishop of Canterbury has sent along his blessing with almost undetectable reservations. Said he, "I am pleased that Prince Charles and Mrs. Camilla Parker Bowles have decided to take this important step." The reservation is in his use of the title Mrs. Parker Bowles.  Which is to say they’ll no longer be living in sin.  He will bless the happy couple after the wedding in a private prayer service.

The Prince and his once and future consort have indeed been living in sin for many years. It is one of the enduring mysteries of our time what they see in each other but love is blind and lovers are said to be unable to see which might explain a lot. They do have some things in common: both love a rollicking good laugh and both have pretty knees. As it turns out, they have quite a lot more in common. It seems Camilla’s great grandmother, Alice Kepple, was the last mistress of Charley’s great-great-grandfather, the flamboyant royal pervert, Edward VII. His Majesty had at least fifteen other mistresses including Sarah Bernhardt, Lily Langtree and the redoubtable Lady Randolph Churchill, mother of Winston, and no slouch herself in the matter of extramarital affairs.

The mating rituals of British royalty have always been esoteric, involving such practices as incest [2], regicide [3], spousal abuse [4] and, of course, adultery. Quite right I say. It provides endless distraction to the commoners which helps them ignore the lousy weather. Still, one has to wonder why any adult with a modicum of intelligence would care about the marriage of a 56-year old man and a 57-year old woman. They will tell you that Charley is heir to the throne but they cannot for the life of them answer the next obvious question. So what? Since when has a scandalous sex life debarred somebody from the British throne? Look at the kings after whom Charley was named—the two other Charley’s, the six Georges and the eight Henrys. Of course there is also Arthur, the mythical cuckold who wound up sleeping with his mother or his sister or a fairy—take your pick.

I bow to no man in my appreciation of good gossip but this is old news. It was sordid ten years ago but now it’s merely leftovers. It was great fun when Charley was making an ass of himself on his cell phone. It was high melodrama when Diana’s brother was berating him and his family at the funeral. But by this time, all you can really say is that it’s so fifteen minutes ago. I know the Brits have a higher tolerance for boredom than most people which is why their newspapers are such amazing scandal sheets. (I even know why this is so but that’s another story.) It may be that royal watching is thought of as a patriotic duty, unpleasant but a necessary part of the stiff upper lip. It might also serve as a reminder that no matter how depressing things get in one’s life, they can be made worse by picking up the daily dispatches from the castle. Be that as it may, it is instructive to imagine the discussions held by serious men and women about the great issues surrounding the forthcoming marriage. What, for example, should HRH wear? A military uniform perhaps? He is, after all, Colonel-in-Chief of the 2nd King Edward VII's Own Gurkha Rifles. In the circumstance, however, we might want to avoid too explicit a reference to his great great grandfather. Yes, and the resplendent uniform might serve to remind people of his first wedding. Maybe, then, white tie and tails (with decorations) or morning suit depending on the time of day. [5] Seems a bit much for a visit to City Hall. Perhaps, then, Bermuda shorts to show off those knees. Brigadier Andrew Henry Parker Bowles who, for King and country, was happy to divest himself of Lady Camilla, will no doubt attend the private prayer service. You will recognize him by the big smile on his face.

The only one not smiling will be the Queen. Until now, every last one of her subjects has been praying she would live forever so they would not have to put up with King Charles III. Now a lot of them will be thinking about how much fun it would be to have Charlie and Camilla on the throne.

Notes

1. Subsequent events have brought this into question. Somebody with a really weird aristo title claims that, “…of course she will be the queen.” It’s never happened that the spouse of a king has not been a queen but neither Dear Bertie nor the current “prince consort” were styled “king.” Jay Leno interviewed the sitting Queen and asked her, “If Camilla is not to be Queen, what title do you have in mind for her?” The Queen answered, “Best in Show.”

2. Until very recently, it was practically required that a member of the royal family marry another royal. Today virtually all European royals, real and pretenders, are related through Queen Victoria and Dear Bertie. [Full disclosure: the writer is not related to Victoria but he is the Pretender to the throne of Donegal.]

3. Edward II was murdered at the instigation of his mother and her paramour in 1327 because she thought her son was gay. He died when they inserted a white hot iron rod up the royal rectum, a method known to have a high degree of success. They replaced him with his son, Edward III, who immediately imprisoned his grandmother and beheaded her lover. Henry II, the greatest of English kings, gained the throne by assassinating his brother, William II. Henry VI was deposed by his cousin Edward IV and then murdered in the Tower of London. Edward V, a teenager, was deposed by his uncle Richard III who immediately murdered him. Bloody Mary became queen by rebelling against the reigning nine-day-wonder queen, Lady Jane Grey, and having her beheaded.

4. The aforementioned Henry II imprisoned his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, for 14 years because she was smarter than he was. George I, the first of the Hanovers who still rule England, had his wife who was also his first cousin, Sophia Dorothea, imprisoned for life on a trumped up charge of infidelity. He did this so he could live a dissolute life with a harem of mistresses and prostitutes. Of course for sheer spousal abuse, one would be hard pressed to exceed the creative solutions of Henry VIII.

5. Additional Subsequent Event: Charlie did indeed choose a morning suit, albeit one with black piping edging the lapels and tails long enough for evening wear. Camilla wore white with a smashing white on white brocade coat and a sort of feathery confection where a hat would ordinarily go. She never looked better, God bless her. And, seriously, God save the Queen.

INVASION OF THE QUEERS
Jerry Harkins

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.
—Senate Joint Resolution 40, 2004


I would argue that the future of our country hangs in the balance because the future of marriage hangs in the balance.
— Rick Santorum (R., Pa.), The New York Times, July 14, 2004


Six senior clerics gathered recently in Jerusalem in an attempt to keep the queers from staging their World Pride Festival there. All tried to disguise themselves by wearing funny costumes, especially one guy wearing what looked for all the world like a dirty Ku Klux Klan hood. One attendee, Rabbi Yehuda Levin, of the Rabbinical Alliance of America, put this “spiritual rape of the Holy City” succinctly. He said, "This is not the homo land, this is the Holy Land." His mother always thought he had a gift for language.

In case you hadn’t noticed, organized religion does not like gays. Right now, its displeasure is concentrated on the “issue” of gay marriage which drives it representatives up the proverbial banana tree. The argument of the Know Nothings comes down to this: if you let the nose of gay marriage into the tent of middle class morality, you will destroy the institution for the rest of us. Since marriage is the basic unit of society, our country’s future will be compromised or worse (think Sodom and Gomorrah). Senator Santorum is not the only person who purports to believe this, not by a long shot. Nor is his fanciful notion that the future of the United States hangs in the balance the most absurd statement of that belief. Speaking of a newly passed state law allowing same sex marriage, Assemblyman Ray Haynes of California said, “We are throwing the dice and taking a huge gamble, and we are gambling with the lives [of] future generations not yet born.” In the eighth grade a nun told Mr. Haynes that, if he masturbated, hair would grow on the palms of his hand. He was so scared, it stunted his intellectual growth which is why he can talk about future generations not yet born.

But the honorable Santorum is a United States senator, a member of the “world’s greatest deliberative body” and this idea is a contender for the stupidest public policy position ever taken. It is also the most bigoted such position since the downfall of Jim Crow and, finally, it is symptomatic of the psychosexual paranoia that characterizes the religious right. But stupidity, bigotry and sexual perversion are beyond the scope of this essay. My concern here is at once simpler and more formal. I want to know precisely how gay marriage threatens straight marriage. What exactly is Senator Santorum worried about? Precisely how will the United States of America be destroyed if we fail to adopt a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage?

Some things do threaten marriage. No fault divorce is high on the list. Adultery is right up there in the top ten. The Internet makes the cut because it facilitates meeting and flirting online which leads to adultery and divorce. Even children threaten marriage by giving couples a whole new list of things to argue about and a whole new set of financial pressures. Do we need a constitutional amendment banning divorce, adultery, the Internet and children? Do any of these evils threaten the viability of the nation? Or is it that Republicans think our citizens must not be exposed to the attractions of gay marriage lest they all be tempted to abandon their pedestrian heterosexual attachments? Do gays have more fun? Is gay contagious? Or is Mr. Santorum’s fear more basic? Maybe he really is worried that God will strike the United States with fire and brimstone.

Could be. These people have rich fantasy lives but, in this case, I suspect we are dealing with just another tiresome example of a majority fearing a minority and trying to suppress it. For obvious reasons, the Yahoos haven’t thought the issue through to anything like a persuasive answer. It is a simple assertion meant to scare you, especially if you trust the likes of Pat Robertson and Rick Santorum. Between the defective major premise that “gay marriage is evil” and the nonsensical conclusion that “gay marriage will destroy America” is a huge chasm with no logical bridge to span it. It isn’t a case of the undistributed middle. There is no middle. There is instead a theological bridge which amounts to nothing more than, “I was chatting with God the other day and he said so.”

As always, the elect feel compelled to justify their discrimination on religious grounds. Before the Civil War, Southern Christians developed a biblical justification for slavery based on the Noah story. You may recall that one day Noah’s son Ham came upon his father sleeping off a hangover in the nude. When the old man got up, he was so chagrinned he immediately condemned Canaan, one of Ham’s sons and his own grandson, to a life of slavery. Okay, this is a crazy story but the slaveholders concluded that their slaves were descendents of Canaan and that their dark skin was the “mark of Cannan.” The logic behind this conclusion is elusive except for the fact that it was the logic of the powerful. Today, a very similar mental quirk informs the case for a ban on gay marriage.

It is true that the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is hard on gays, calling for their summary execution. I haven’t heard any Southern Baptists going quite that far, but I wouldn’t be surprised insofar as they believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God. But I digress. Let’s accept, for the sake of argument, that the God of the Christians—that is, the God of love—hates gay men or, at least, the things gay men do. They are, therefore, on their way to hell, so why does anyone care whether or not the state lets them get married? Mr. Santorum should ask next time he speaks to Jesus.

Bubba, I tell you this: if you take your sexual morality from the Bible, it’s hard to see how anyone can avoid the gates of hell. If national survival depends on the Bible, then we need an amendment banning a long list of things from fornication to in vitro fertilization. We need to add an S&M clause to the Eighth Amendment to allow the whipping of male and female slaves although not to death. I know Senator Santorum is not much of an historian but his law is going to need fierce teeth if it is to avoid the fate of the Eighteenth Amendment. I mean Prohibition was the greatest public policy failure of all time. Maybe we’ll have to revert to stoning the bastards to death. While we’re at it, we should probably outlaw remarriage after divorce. With the provision that, if you’re already remarried, the new marriage does not have to be recognized in Texas.

There is a significant element of hypocrisy in all this. The church says it is in the business of saving souls or a least the souls of the straight. But there is a 14-year old girl, Shay Clark, who has been expelled from the Ontario Christian School in California. Was she getting bad grades, disrupting classes, cheating on exams or committing rampant plagiarism? No, her crime was having lesbian parents. Superintendent Leonard Stob wrote to Tina Clark, the girl's biological mother that school policy requires that at least one parent may not engage in practices "immoral or inconsistent with a positive Christian life style, such as cohabitating without marriage or in a homosexual relationship." Do you think Mr. Stob thinks it would be okay if only one of Shay’s parents were a lesbian? (Or, for that matter, if only one were married?) Do you think he’s ever heard of Jesus Christ? I mean the part about suffering the little children to come to me and forbid them not for such is the kingdom of heaven? I can’t find anyplace where the Bible says eternal damnation awaits those whose parents are gay. I may be wrong so you better ask Pat Robertson or Lennie Stob. If the latter’s letter to Shay’s mother is any evidence, he is a moron in addition to being a hypocrite so he may not know either.

You don’t have to write me outraged emails. I know this is all one big reductio ad absurdum. But so is the logic of the gay marriage amendment, based as it is on the fallacy that gay marriage threatens straight marriage. Now I admit that I’m a little queasy about the word marriage itself which has its roots in Greek and Sanskrit words suggesting boy and girl. I also think that marriage is a sacred institution which means to me that the government of the United States has no business messing with it. Both Church and State have legitimate interests in sexual relationships but they are not the same interests and they don’t even overlap much. I would be happier if all couples, straight and gay, would first register with the secular authorities as, say, domestic partners, thereby gaining all the rights and responsibilities the law now imparts to married people. Those wishing a church wedding would then be free to get one from any church willing to provide it. With or without the semantic nuance, this is the way it is done in Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Great Britain.

And it would pretty much solve the problem except for the boogie man argument claiming that the logic of gay marriage would apply equally to plural marriage and incestuous marriage. It might. Today it is generally thought that there is a legitimate public health reason for the state to prohibit both. Different jurisdictions ban marriages between persons of different degrees of consanguinity in order to reduce the probability that persons who carry identical genetic faults will produce offspring with the same fault. With the advent of genetic screening, this is less of a problem than it used to be although most societies still do not permit the kind of incestuous relationship Lot had with his daughters or Pope Alexander VI had with his daughter Lucretia Borgia. As to plural marriage, many societies have practiced it and many still do, notably societies in the reddest of states, Utah, Colorado, Idaho and Texas. We in the United States forbid it, not because it violates any biblical precept (the Bible smiles on plural marriage), but because we think it constitutes abuse of women and children. It may but it is nowhere near as abusive as alcohol as a cause of family discord. I guess I come down against plural marriage but it falls well within the pale of my live-and-let-live philosophy of life.

My guess is the sexually repressed religious right hates to see anybody having a good time in bed. So they issue their fatwas commanding everybody to cease and desist. Don’t ask me for a reason. Just follow orders because I give them. It is, in short, the last argument to which fools and kings resort.

What is marriage other than a contract witnessed and sanctioned by some representative of the community? It is a remnant of Babylonian and Jewish property law (“…to have and to hold”). Our ancestors demanded ownership rights so that a man could be reasonably certain his wife’s children were his also. This has evolved into society’s mechanism for promoting and regulating procreation, objectives now abandoned even by China. But the state does have a legitimate interest in children and in encouraging parents to fulfill parental responsibilities. As a last resort, the state must protect children against crazy or abusive parents, assure that they have access to a decent education, insist on minimal school attendance, and see to it that the interests of minors are represented in divorce and other legal proceedings. It has arguable interests in broader areas of child welfare: health, nutrition and labor are generally thought to be among these. Finally, the state has the right and obligation to oversee the disposition of assets when there is a dispute among heirs.

The church, on the other hand, may or may not take an interest in any of these matters but such interests have no force of law. The church’s unquestioned and exclusive area of interest is the spiritual welfare of its own adherents. If a church believes that the use of condoms is inconsistent with that welfare, it may preach against their use. It can excommunicate members who dissent from its teachings, but it may not incarcerate them or burn them at the stake (except possibly in Texas).

Inevitably there will arise points at which church and state interests intersect and possibly conflict with each other. May, for example, Jehovah’s Witnesses insist that their children not be forced to salute the flag or recite the Pledge? Generally, they may. But a parent living in the Fourth Circuit probably cannot object to the phrase “under God” because mandatory recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance is a patriotic not a religious activity. May Christian Scientists withhold conventional medical therapy from their seriously ill children? As a general rule, no. May Quakers refuse to serve in the military? Yes with the proviso that they perform alternative service. May members of a Native American church use a controlled psychoactive substance in religious rituals? Sure, but the state of California cannot allow seriously ill patients to use marijuana to relieve pain. Could the late Timothy Leary start a church to promote the use of LSD? Of course not. These intersections are always interesting and often revealing as to the social contract. Witness, for example, the efforts of the State of Connecticut to prohibit the use of contraceptives by couples, straight or gay, married or not. The 1879 law was almost never enforced and was challenged whenever it was. It was, however, consistently upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States until 1965. Then, in Griswold v. Connecticut (381 U.S. 479) the Court finally dealt with the basic conflict between individual liberty and the right of the community to enforce majority standards of morality. All recognized that the Connecticut law was what Justice Stewart (in dissent) called, “an uncommonly silly law.” Justice Felix Frankfurter, wrote the majority opinion which has been a red flag for conservatives ever since. In it, he found—some say he invented—a fundamental right to marital privacy in these words:

We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights—older than our political parties, older than our school system. Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects.

Frankfurter was obviously not thinking of gay marriage but his logic just as obviously does not exclude it. Indeed over the four succeeding decades, the coverage of his logic broadened significantly. Most recently, the Supreme Court struck down Texas’ anti-sodomy law. In doing so, Justice Kennedy said, “Freedom extends beyond spatial bounds. Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct” (Lawrence v. Texas, 000 U.S. 02-102, 2003). Justice Scalia dissented on a variety of substantive and procedural grounds and was joined by Justice Thomas who, citing Griswold, added this thought:

I write separately to note that the law before the Court today "is ... uncommonly silly.  If I were a member of the Texas Legislature, I would vote to repeal it. Punishing someone for expressing his sexual preference through noncommercial consensual conduct with another adult does not appear to be a worthy way to expend valuable law enforcement resources."

Progress comes slowly and is never without occasional backsliding. But it would be blind to deny that gay rights have come a long way since the Stonewall revolt of 1969. It is reasonable to project that anti-discrimination laws will increasingly be applied to gays and lesbians and, one way or another, will become normative nationally. They already serve in the military and the ministry albeit under widely different conditions. They teach in the public schools without a hint of the fear and animosity they encountered as recently as 1960. They are featured in popular television programs, on the stage and in films of all kinds. They are still subject to a degree of witch hunting as, for example, when Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson blamed gays for the wrath of God which led to 9/11. (Again, it is a strange God who employs the slaughter of the innocents to make a point.) But Falwell, Robertson and their ilk are widely seen as fruitcakes and has-beens (except in Texas).

Given all this, can gay marriage be far behind? The 2004 elections would seem to say just that. Eleven states (Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Ohio, Oregon and Utah) had anti gay marriage amendments on their ballots and all passed by wide margins. In the four Southern states, the amendments received at least three-quarters of the votes. Even in Oregon and Michigan the ban got 59 percent. But there is another bit of social psychology at work here. It used to be said that certain counties in Texas would remain dry as long as the voters were sober enough to stagger to the polls. Gay marriage may be similar. A solid majority of the American electorate vehemently opposes the idea on moral grounds. But live-and-let-live is also a prominent feature of our social contract. I would argue that recent history has brought the tipping point within reach. For example, on two consecutive days, a trial judge in Arkansas struck down a law barring gay couples from being foster parents and the Supreme Court of Montana ruled that Montana universities must offer health insurance to the partners of gay employees. Subsequently, the California legislature revised its family law to sanction same sex marriage although it was widely expected that Governor Schwarzenegger would veto it. In Massachusetts, though, a court decision requiring equality for gay couples led to a fierce fight and the initial approval of a constitutional amendment by the legislature banning gay marriage. A year later, however, the legislature changed its mind and voted 157-39 to reject the amendment. The Republican minority leader who co-sponsored the amendment now voted against it. “Today, gay marriage is the law of the land” he said, and it would be wrong now to take action, “…against our friends and neighbors who today are currently enjoying the benefits of marriage.” A Democrat who also changed his mind said, “When I looked in the eyes of the children living with these couples, I decided that I don’t feel at this time that same-sex marriage has hurt the commonwealth in any way. In fact I would say that in my view it has had a good effect for the children in these families.” These changes of heart were heavily influenced by their constituents of course but it is now certain that more and more single sex couples will join the 6,600 couples who have already been married in Massachusetts.

As we continue to evolve in these and other ways toward a more freedom-embracing society, each incremental step will strengthen us, our families and our country. Either that or our faith in the vision of the founders that everyone has a God-given right to the pursuit of happiness is a sham.

As they say, “We’re queer, we’re here. Get used to it.”

O DANNY BOY

Jerry Harkins



Paddy, we hardly knew ye.

The day we have long dreaded has come. Daniel Patrick Moynihan has left the building and gone home to God at the age of 76. They say it was complications from appendix surgery. Is that right, lad? Your fucking appendix? You died because of some remnant organ we inherited from nematodes? An organ that does nothing and never did do anything we could figure out? A lousy joke, boy-o. You’re sure now it wasn’t the liver? Ah, Danny, it’s been so long we have been worrying about your obituary and about what we might say by way of eulogy. One never wants to mislead the reader but at the same time it is culturally necessary to recognize your genius and greatness of spirit.

Just know, my friend, that I have already established the International Committee for the Canonization of Pat Moynihan. I’m thinking of asking Al d’Amato to serve as Honorary Chair in tribute to all the years you gave the voters reason to think one intelligent senator was enough. March 26 will make a fine feast day. No one else of importance died on that date except Beethoven and Walt Whitman, the former a Protestant and the latter…well, the less said the better.

There’s so much to do this will have to be shorter than I would like. There’s the Ladies Auxiliary of the Oswego Volunteer Fire Department that will be wanting to erect a monument. They’ve been threatening to put up a Rococo fountain spouting cheap gin instead of water. Then there is the traditional Irish wake to arrange—without the guest of honor of course in respect of Liz’s feelings. I must say, Paddy, it disappointed me to learn of your desire to be laid to rest in Arlington. They offered the crypt under the altar at St. Patrick’s but Liz said you’d be uncomfortable so close to that son of a bitch Spellman. But Arlington? Ah, well, “Let your spirit rest where the heroes are, your memory shine like the morning star.” Joyce Kilmer, of course, another Irish hero. And we need to look after Liz. A marvelous woman but the Brennans, you know, were always more lace curtain than their lessers including, no disrespect meant, the Moynihans of County Kerry. So if this eulogy must be brief, it’s not because we love you any the less but because there are so many loose ends.

At a time like this it comforts me to recall Robert Browning’s line, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp / Else what’s a heaven for?” Daniel Patrick Moynihan never got things perfectly right but he came closer than anyone else and had great fun doing so. Do you recall his struggle to find just the right word to express revulsion toward Bill Clinton’s sexual peccadilloes? Trying to stave off impeachment by the red meat radicals, he said in September of ’98 that it was important to face “…the profound moral consequences that will arise not just from what has happened but from what might happen if we do not proceed with the measure of moral compass.” By “the measure of moral compass” I think he meant the jawbone of an ass in lieu of impeachment, and who was better qualified to wield said jawbone? Later, he simplified it to deplorable and reprehensible, but both of these were seen as too wimpy. Senator Hatch contributed the idea that Mr. Clinton needed to worry about, “…leaving an eensy-weensy, itsy-bitsy better legacy than he has so far.” Paddy however knew that history smiles on more muscular language. He really wanted to go for degenerate or pervert but they didn’t make the cut because they might have appeared self-referential. After all, Paddy had been the only solon who dared defend his old drinking buddy, Bob Packwood, who stood accused of advanced swordsmanship. He rejected The Times’ low rent because of its racist undertones, and bum cut too close to the quick. Too bad because it’s a really short word that would not have challenged the average Republican.

Throughout, Paddy was only trying to do his part but, as so often in a colorful career, he found himself in bed with uncouth ignoramuses promoting agendas that would make Ted Kaczynski blanch. People for example who were calling on Janet Reno to expand Ken Starr’s mandate to include the scandal over Tinky Winky Teletubby’s sexual orientation. Pat discovered that being the only good apple in a barrel of slime was not a viable career choice.

He never did find the right word but it was important to make the effort because Paddy’s words carried gravitas. He alone was not a hypocrite. He was not an adulterer. He was not a liar. He was not stupid. One could ignore the demented obsession of The New York Times’ all-the-scandal-all-the time journalism which was perfectly explained by Toni Morrison as a reaction to the nation’s first black president. Unlike the denizens of the Sulzberger Mafia, Pat knew that the President’s sins were trivial and that all the fuss was nothing more important than right wing politics. Unlike Grand Inquisitor Henry Hyde, he knew that the impeachment marked the nadir of American history. Since no one with any brains would believe the drivel being pushed by the Times and the Ayatollah of Illinoiah, someone with credibility had to stand up for the ten commandments and then move on. The task was hopeless of course which is all the more reason to admire Pat for taking it on.

His was a glorious life marred only by a single tragic flaw in the manner of Odysseus or Achilles. In his case, the flaw was hubris. The poor bastard came to believe the mirror on the wall when it told him he was the smartest of them all. This faith in the objectivity of mirrors is one of the most charming conceits of Irish intellectuals and, in his case, the mirror was not lying. But pride is invariably fatal to a politician because it makes such an easy target for the Yahoos. Poor Paddy! His name will live forever but, like Roger Maris’s, it will always have an asterisk appended.

THE IRISH CONCESSION

Jerry Harkins

It is not nearly well enough known that bestiality is only a venial sin. The theological basis for this classification of the offence — if offence it be at all — has to do, I understand, with the fact that dumb animals don’t have souls to be sullied, neither, then, are they capable of giving, and are equally incapable of withholding, informed consent to the commission of the act. So feel free with a frolicky ferret.
                                                                                                               —Eammon McCann

Mr. McCann is an Irish journalist who writes frequently about religion but, about this, he is only partially correct. Exodus 22:19 states explicitly, “Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death.” Leviticus 18 lays down the law in numbing detail with regard to this abomination as well as to incest and homosexuality. And Leviticus 20:15-16 says that anyone, man or woman, who commits such an abomination shall be put to death and their blood shall be on themselves. The official Catechism of the Catholic Church defines lust, the third deadly sin, as “…disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.” It goes on to say, “The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose.” This is derived more or less from Aquinas who classifies bestiality as “unnatural vice [which] flouts nature by transgressing its basic principles of sexuality [and] is in this matter the gravest of sins.”

Which is precisely where McCann goes wrong. His entire focus is on the beast who he assumes cannot sin because she (or, I suppose, he) lacks a soul. This, of course, is wholly irrelevant to the culpability of the human actor and is, moreover, entirely too narrow a view of sin. Some acts, of course, are sinful in themselves (mallum per se) but the vast majority of “offenses against the will of God” are sins because of their effects. The effect of bestiality is carnal pleasure absent the possibility of procreation. It is this effect that is seriously opposed to the will of God for reasons that are not as clear as they might be but that need not concern good Christians.

McCann fell into heresy, I suspect, because the Church has long made a singular exception known as The Irish Concession. In Ireland, bestiality is only a venial sin. Here’s how it came about. Toward the end of his life, St. Patrick withdrew to the wilderness — the mountain known today as Croagh Patrick in County Mayo — to fast and pray during the forty days of Lent. While he was there, he negotiated with God a charter of special blessings for the Irish. Among these was the proposal that for them, alone and for all time, bestiality should be defined as a virtue. At first, God was furious but Patrick reasoned with him by pointing out that all other nations were allowed the form of birth control known as Vatican Roulette. Unfortunately, this method requires a degree of mathematical sophistication and record keeping skill entirely at odds with Irish culture. God quickly saw both the logic and justice of the argument and agreed to permit bestiality among the Irish as a “natural” form of birth control. He would not go so far as to call it a virtue, but he was willing to reduce it to a venial sin. Patrick, who had bigger fish to fry, capitulated and so it has been ever since.

The Concession, agreed to in haste by both parties, raises a number of interesting questions for moral theologians. Since these are not dealt with elsewhere, I will attempt here to provide definitive guidance for confessors and other concerned professionals.

Question: Does The Concession apply to Irish men and women who may have acquired the mathematical and record keeping abilities needed for the rhythm method? I reply: Yes, absolutely. In fact, at the famous meeting between Patrick and God, an angel asked this very question and the two principals broke into an unseemly fit of laughter at the thought of an Irishman who could count. Therefore, no exception was made and it is now too late to change the rules. Practically, however, the devil does not lose much by this. The few Irish persons who have mastered the art of counting are almost all Protestants who are doomed to hell anyway.

Question: Is The Concession strictly limited to those of Irish blood? I reply: No. The Concession was granted not because its beneficiaries were Irish but because they could not count to 28. Thus, like the Pauline Privilege which is not restricted to men named Paul (or women named Pauline), The Irish Concession applies with equal force to all those who, for cultural reasons, cannot count. For example, it applies to some Italians and other aboriginals. However, unlike the case of Irish mathematicians and accountants, it does not apply to Italians who can count. (Moral theology is a subtle discipline and you just better get used to it.)

Question: Is it licit to use a condom while engaged in bestiality? I reply: No. It is never licit to use artificial means of birth control, even to prevent a sexually transmitted disease. If, however, one wishes to use a condom for purely sanitary reasons, there will be no objection as long as a pinprick is made in the tip. The virtue of prudence suggests that the pinprick be made before the condom is donned.

Question: Is it lawful to look at dirty pictures while having intercourse with a sheep? I reply: There is no objection as long as they are dirty pictures of sheep.

Question: Does The Concession apply to intercourse between a male person and a ram, or a female person and a ewe? I reply: No. Homosexuality is a separate abomination and is not included in The Concession.

Question: How about heterosexual perversions such as French kissing? I reply: As is the case with sexual intercourse between humans, practices engaged in by way of foreplay are generally acceptable, while those performed for their own sake are not.

Question: Does The Concession apply to members of the clergy? I reply: Yes because it is a lesser evil than all the alternatives. As St. Paul taught, it is better to bugger than to burn.

Question: When a person and a sheep have a sexual relationship, are public displays of affection permissible? I reply: Yes, as long as the relationship is well established within the community and is based on mutual affection and respect.

Question: Given a person/sheep relationship of mutual affection and respect, may that relationship be solemnized in the church? I reply: No. Obviously there can be no sacerdotal recognition of the relationship as long as the person’s spouse is living, and there can be no sexual relationship to recognize once the spouse is dead (but see below). If, however, a widower or widow and a sheep are prepared to undertake the rigors of a companionate (i.e., sexless) relationship, then there would be no objection to the blessing of the couple on the steps of the church or in the rectory.

Question: If a sheep showed itself unwilling to have sex with a person, would it be considered rape if the person forced the issue? I reply: The question has never come up. There has never been an instance of a sheep refusing sex to an Irishman. Sheep are occasionally reluctant to have sex with members of the Italian clergy which is why God created goats.

Question: Goats? Does The Concession apply to species other than sheep? I reply: Liberal theologians believe the rule applies to any species not specifically listed as unclean in Leviticus 11 or Deuteronomy 14. Under this interpretation, a frolicky ferret would make a permissible partner as would a goat. In practice, ducks are often used by persons too poor to own a sheep. Our sources are unanimous, however, in condemning the use of pigs. By tradition, pigs are regarded as unclean and are, therefore, exported to England. What the English do with them is unknown.

Question: Does The Concession apply to single, widowed or divorced persons? I reply: First, there is no such thing as divorce. As to single persons, of course not. Sex involving a person who is not married is always seriously sinful. (Nor would it be permissible for a single person to “marry” a sheep except in Massachusetts.) In the case of a widow or widower, The Concession remains in effect through the period of mourning.

Question: Is the moral stature of pedophilia in England similar to that of bestiality in Ireland? I reply: No. The similarities often adduced by Anglican apologists — cultural prevalence and natural contraceptive effectiveness — are superficial in the absence of clear evidence of divine acquiescence. Jesus’ remark, “Suffer the little children to come unto me…” (Matt. 19:14, et al) was made in an entirely different context as the Protestants would know if they had the true apostolic succession.

Question: Is it licit for a person having a sexual relationship with a sheep to eat lamb? I reply: It depends on how you define the word “eat.”

Question: What is meant by the phrase, “Lamb of God?” I reply: That’s enough questions for today.

THE TRUTH IS NOT IN HIM

Jerry Harkins

We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.                                                                                          —1 JOHN 2:3-6

Dear Christian Fundamentalist,

Well, you did it. You elected George W. Bush and, I am sure you will agree, you are responsible for him. You had your reasons: he appeared to be one of your own, he talked a pretty good game about the sanctity of life and family values, his policies and promises were resonant with your misgivings about the welfare state including social security, Medicaid, and Affirmative Action, and he had a deep distrust of science which you and he associate with materialism and even atheism. So you bought him, he’s yours, and now I think you must have a little case of buyer’s remorse. Things weren’t going well under Clinton and now you’re not much better off after five years of your own man. There’s a lot to worry about.

It’s okay if you’re not ready to admit all this out loud. Just today, I heard the father of a soldier in Iraq tell Mr. Bush, “I thank God you’re the President.” I think he was being sincere and what’s more I think his son probably agrees with him. But you saw what happened when he nominated Harriet Myers to the Supreme Court. Many of you and most of your leaders abandoned him. You see what’s happening in Congress as his fellow conservative Republicans try to evade the toxic waste dump the White House has become. They’re like rats deserting a leaking ship which is precisely what I would do in the same circumstances. Did you notice they nearly blew the Alito nomination? I can’t think of a single Supreme Court confirmation vote that was closer (not counting those the nominee lost). The professional Republicans are not happy campers at the moment and I can’t think you are either. I don’t know which question is scarier. Could we have been wrong about him? Or, exactly where did we go wrong? But really if you’re not at least worried about it you might want to check for a pulse. The government is going to hell and it’s very largely your fault.

It was an easy mistake to make. Religion has always given you hope and a measure of assurance. You look to the third chapter of John about the importance of faith and the necessity of being “born again” and you note the President of the United States says he too is born again. You expect him to give God a central role in our nation’s affairs. Nations need God’s protection as much as you do, so you want our country to be like you imagine it used to be, back when there was less fear, less uncertainty and less confusion. That, in a nutshell, is why you voted for George W. Bush and, for better or worse, history will hold him to your account. Given the embarrassing failures of the second term, I’d like to offer this consideration of your relationship with the President.

I know it is not a matter of blind hero worship on your part. You are aware, in varying degrees, of Mr. Bush’s shortcomings. You can’t help but notice the shifty eyes, the sneer and the strut. You must shiver at the memory of the schoolyard bully. You know, I hope, he lies a lot. About things like weapons of mass destruction and global warming and social security. In your heart, you know he was a draft dodger and you were queasy about his slandering the military service of John Kerry. But you don’t care too much about such things because you agree with what he says are his objectives even if his tactics are less than ideal. Ever since Barry Goldwater told you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, you have had to soften your views about the end and the means. So you find yourself defending him not because you are enthusiastic about him personally but because any attack on him seems to be an attack on you and your values.

What would Jesus do? How, you must wonder, does Mr. Bush stand with the Lord? You can’t know, of course, but you can wonder.

You can see the Iraqis are having a hard time trying to learn how to live with each other. The draft constitution that the President promotes unashamedly enshrines Sharia as an “important” source of law and relegates women to something it calls its “transitional” section. You know in your hearts this is not the democracy for which we have spent so much blood and money. Yeah, I know women’s rights are not a high priority item with you. Wives be subject to your husbands. Barefoot and pregnant, that’s the ticket. If I told you what I think of St. Paul, you’d be scandalized, so I’ll spare you. But, please, whatever you think, Sharia is not democracy. Shedding blood for it is something you and I would leave to the Muslims. Mr. Bush says all that young American blood is being invested in freedom. But you’ve known all along you can’t force freedom on a people at the end of a gun. You tried to ignore it. You gathered around the flag and thought, “My country, right or wrong.” But what did you think when he came out of his hiding place in Crawford long enough to call the draft constitution an “amazing event” that protects women and religious freedom, and dismisses its obvious shortcomings with the throwaway line, “We had a little trouble with our own conventions writing a constitution?” Do you think he simply doesn’t understand the history or is this just another of his cheap throw-away lies?

Or take the matter of torture. Mr. Bush and his cronies want to torture suspected members of Al Qaeda. Senator McCain, a man who knows something about torture, says this is immoral, un-American and ineffective. But Mr. Bush wants an exception to the McCain anti-torture amendment so the CIA can torture suspects as long as the torture is, “…consistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States and treaties to which the United States is a party.” How can torture be consistent with the Eighth Amendment? Here it is in its entirety: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” How can an administration that preaches strict constitutional interpretation out of one side of its mouth, advocate torture out of the other side? By lying, my friends. By lying. By saying often enough and loud enough that torture is perfectly consistent with the words, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Like you, I have no brief for Osama and would be happy to strangle him. But I’d be damned before I’d say doing so is consistent with the Constitution. If nothing else, it’s a matter of self-respect.

He says he’s sending John Bolton to reform the UN which, I agree, needs some serious reforming. But when Mr. Bush says “reform” he’s lying. Again. His goal is not to reform the UN but to destroy it or, lacking complete destruction, at least to get the US out of it. Maybe he’s right. In recent decades, the UN has been good only for solving small problems that are not controversial. But I hate it that Mr. Bush says “reform” when he means “destroy.” I hate it that he says “privatize” social security when he means kill it. Conservatives have always found it difficult to kill entitlement programs. So decades ago you decided the best strategy would be to campaign against “big government” and attack not the programs but their funding. It’s called “starving the beast.” That has become the fundamental strategy of the Bush administration. But do you like it that the Big Lie has become the fundamental tactic? I hate it when the government’s reason for promoting No Child Left Behind is to sugar coat a $15 billion cut in education funding. I hate it when he calls his proposal to open up more land to the timber industry the Healthy Forests Initiative. Or when he allows the power industry to add 80 million tons of mercury to the air every year and calls it Clean Skies. Or when he says, “You’re doing a great job, Brownie.” The biggest lie of all and, by far, the most serious is the idea that the Iraq fiasco is part of the war on terrorism. In the beginning, it was a simple lie. There was no connection between the Islamic terrorists and the secular government of Iraq. The idea that Saddam was supporting Al Qaeda was merely a fabrication meant to shore up the weak case for waging preemptive war. But as things went from bad to worse, it turned into the Orwellian Lie. The administration has turned Iraq into the best thing that ever happened to the terrorists—a breeding ground, a training camp, and a recruitment incentive all over the Muslim world.

Did you remember George Orwell’s 1984 which set out to show that “…political chaos is connected with the decay of the language?” Big Brother was given to saying things like “War is peace” and “Love is hate.” The government was divided into four ministries: The Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself with the art of the big lie, the Ministry of Peace, which concerned itself with war, the Ministry of Love, which maintained law and order, and the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible for economic affairs. It’s one of the few books George Bush ever took to heart. Or maybe Karl Rove read the Cliff Notes.

Admit it: you fear that you can’t trust him to do even what he says he will do for you. You hope he’ll keep his promise about faith based initiatives. What you’ve gotten after four and a half years is a small White House bureaucracy and a fancy brochure. You’ve been trying to get him to pay more attention to North Korea where Christianity is considered treason. So far, he’s been more attentive to the sensibilities of the Dear Loony Tune in Pyongyang than to the plight of your (and his) co-religionists. When the Afghanis (his Afghanis) threatened to behead a Muslim who converted to Christianity, his response was, “Tsk, tsk. That’s not nice.” You liked his ban on stem cell research even if it was a Pyrrhic victory. Are you secretly rooting for the atheist scientists to develop a work-around before it’s too late for you? I wouldn’t blame you. Are there any among you who would reject a cure for Alzheimer’s that was derived from embryonic stem cell research?

You know, too, that he isn’t terribly bright. You know how he got into and out of Yale, Harvard and the Texas National Guard. But you also know that you wouldn’t stare a gift horse in the mouth either if you were a fun loving drunk whose daddy was a big shot. Sometimes you think he must be hallucinating. It bothers you to think maybe his huge tax cuts are meant only to make the rich richer. It bothers some of you to see him turning a $236 billion surplus into a $333 billion deficit overnight, in part because of those same tax cuts. If you’re a fiscal conservative, you must be really uncomfortable about his succession of huge budget deficits. Most of all, the evidence of your own eyes tells you that the war on terrorism isn’t going so well. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars and some 2,400 American lives. For this we have toppled Saddam but have not caught up with Osama bin Laden or Al Qaida or Mullah Omar of the Taliban. We have not brought peace to Iraq or democracy to the Middle East. We have not affected the ability of the so-called insurgents to kill our soldiers and Iraqi civilians pretty much at will. You (and the generals) know we can’t win unless we seal the Syrian and Iranian borders to prevent the infiltration of Jordanian, Egyptian and Saudi jihadists. And even Mr. Bush knows we no longer have the military resources to do that. You’re doing a great job, Rummy. Next December 19, we will have been at war in Iraq longer than we were in World War II. In dollars, it’s already cost us ten times as much. That’s 67% of World War II’s cost in constant dollars. Wow! And all this in pursuit of a neocon theory of warfare—Shock and Awe—that should have been trashed before the Mission Accomplished fiasco, another Big Lie.

My friends, George W. Bush is a big price to pay even for goals as close to your hearts as reversing Roe v. Wade and eliminating evolution from the curriculum. Judge Roberts is a fine man but one selected more for his confirmability than his dedication to conservative causes. He’s no Judge Bork, Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas. As to Sam Alito, time will tell. You are decent people who love your families and your country. You take Jesus seriously. “Love the Lord your God…Love your neighbor as yourself.” Once you felt beleaguered. It seemed that people like me were always looking down on you. George Wallace called us “pointy-headed intellectuals.” But now you have the upper hand. This is your moment. If you think we screwed up our moment, please learn from our mistakes and don’t screw up yours. Do not let yourselves be bamboozled by a chronic liar. Remember, he’s your responsibility. The cold eye of history is on you.

Personally, of course, I think George W. Bush is a serious threat to world peace, democracy, fiscal solvency, civil and human rights and the environment. I think he’s got you hoodwinked. Maybe he does believe in God but more likely he’s just another politician pandering to a base. John’s description of the hypocrite cited above fits George W. Bush perfectly. I know you don’t agree. I know you prefer him to Bill Clinton who was a great President but a public sinner. I will never understand that. Who in the world thinks we’ve been better off under Mr. Bush? Not our European allies. Not our Asian competitors. In fact, no one I can think of except you. I think, my friends, you hope that, as questionable as he is, Mr. Bush will at least set the stage for a true conservative next time. I’m not too worried about that because I believe the next conservative President will be a rational human being, maybe even a Democrat. In other words, I don’t think anyone like Sam Brownback or Rick Santorum can get elected. Your team is already spending millions to prevent Hillary Clinton from retrieving the keys to the White House. I like that because I think you’re wasting your money like you wasted it on her husband’s impeachment. All you got for that investment was your own humiliation in the eyes of the whole world. Okay, you and I see the world differently. But, my friends, we also have a lot in common. And we’re both holding our breaths. Good luck to both of us.